


Half-Hearted

by wormhourdeluxe



Category: One Piece
Genre: Anal Fingering, Angst, Blow Jobs, Canonical Character Death, Comfort Sex, Explicit Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, Ghost Sex, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Oral Sex, Porn with Feelings, Temperature Play, Tragic Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:27:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28499787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wormhourdeluxe/pseuds/wormhourdeluxe
Summary: It's a night like any others, Sabo staring a ghost down, and the ghost trying to tell him it was real.
Relationships: Portgas D. Ace/Sabo
Comments: 3
Kudos: 45





	Half-Hearted

**Author's Note:**

> Happy new years!!

It didn't matter if Ace was dead.

(It mattered. It  _ matters. _ )

After all, no one was ever truly dead. They live on in your heart. In your memories. People only die when they are forgotten–– and wasn't that comforting? That he, that everyone, was and would be centuries older than they could ever anticipate?

(Koala at least hadn't wasted both of their time trying to comfort him. Not like that. She knew him far better than to so openly insult him.)

Sabo, more than anyone, was aware of this. He could he not? Ace was alive no matter what form he took. Flashes of fuzzy childhood memories. A tattoo slicing a familiar name behind his eyelids. Bruises and blood and phantom dirt under his nails. A flickering little wildfire, licking at the cold and hollow insides of his rib cage.

The form Ace took now glared at him, his crossed arms wavering where Sabo tossed another crumpled piece of paper through them.

"Sabo."

Faces and voices. Images Sabo couldn't swat away. Charred bones, sizzling under his skin.

"Sabo. Seriously."

How familiar. How comforting. How cruel. "Stop it," Sabo groaned, "Hallucinations should be polite enough to be quiet, you asshole."

Ace's eyebrow only rose. The skin of his face shifted with the motion, hair moving as he tilted his head. He looked so real, so alive. It was an expression so familiarly exasperated.

Sabo decided he hated it. An odd clump rose in his throat and he swallowed painfully around it, instead throwing another piece of paper.

Ace didn't do more than sigh when the paper flew through him. His visage rippled where it passed untouched through his collarbone. "When are you going to listen to me?" He asked. Sabo wasn't too sure if the question was even technically directed at him. Just his luck that his hallucinations sassed him too. "I wouldn't 'xactly call myself a patient guy, or even a patient brother but this is–– come on, Sabo, get a grip. We can't keep doing this."

"Sure we can," Sabo snapped. The next crumpled ball of paper flared in his hands. He glared at his feet as he shook off the ash from his gloves, unable to even look at the flickering flames. "What's one more day out of a million? It's not like you're  _ really _ suffering anyway. Only living people get to hurt, and guess what you aren't?"

He scoffed. It came out violent. Bitter. The taste of it curdled on his tongue. "You're not even  _ real." _

Silence. Sabo carefully kept his eyes on the floor. He didn't want to see what expression his mind would put on the not-Ace's face. There was no reason to torture himself even further than he already was. After all, a Chief of Staff needed to keep level-headed. Cool. Calm. Steady.  _ Useful. _ Koala would smack him if she caught wind he was back to––

Freezing hands gripped his shoulders hard.

Sabo violently flung himself backward, flames licking through his clothes to no avail. The cold touch remained imprinted on his skin, right through the cloth, through the skin and bone even as–– as––

He could count the freckles across the bridge of Ace's nose. Every individual eyelash. The strange translucent bluish hue his hallucination now sported, the crease of his frown pulling at familiar lips.

His chair clattered to the floor and so did he, eyes tunneling on the ghostly visage as it shoved him to the ground.

_ "Listen to me!" _ Ace shouted. His hands  _ (freezing, freezing cold, frostbite on his skin and snow on his shoulders––)  _ curled into the fabric of Sabo's now rumbled lapels, yanking him up off the floorboards.  _ "Listen _ to me, you big stupid asshole  _ idiot, _ I'm not a  _ fucking _ hallucination!"

A mockery of weight settled forcibly on his hips. Distinct  _ (cold, so cold) _ knees dug into his sides. The cold seeping through Sabo's coat into his bones did nothing to hide the  _ solidness _ of the touch, the comfortable certainty of it.

Tears pricked his eyes, burning and cold and painfully horrible.

"I  _ hate _ you," Sabo spit, and the empty space in his chest yawned wide. "I hate that you did this to me. I hate that I––" He swallowed again, thick and hard. "Why can't you just let me move on?"

Ace–– It's eyes shut tightly. The frosty grip tightened. "I'm–– I'm trying," He whispered. "I'm  _ trying _ to. To help."

_ It's not working. Nothing is ever working. _ Sabo grit his teeth until something in his jaw cracked painfully, straining with the effort. The ghost didn't stop him from throwing an arm over his face. Didn't stop him when his teeth buried themselves, uselessly, into the flesh of his arm. Didn't even pretend to have the courtesy to back away when flames licked up against the roof of Sabo's mouth, drying the wetness of his eyes.

When he continued to say nothing, it's visage seemed to slump. Sabo shivered as it’s weight settled more firmly on top of him, naked chest bleeding cold between them.

Cold, cold, cold. It's all he ever felt even with the fire in his veins.

It's hands loosened and Sabo slowly slumped back against the ground. The freezing fingers were so, so delicate where they instead curled around his wrist. Goosebumps rose all along his forearm when that touch grazed the thin strip of bare skin between glove and sleeve.

"Sabo?" Ace––  _ it,  _ **_It_ ** damn it all–– murmured. "Look at me. Please."

He never won in anything anyway. Not in anything that mattered.

Sabo allowed his arm to be pulled from his face like a hand sweeping through cobwebs. It fell limply beside his head. The cold refused to fade, loose as it was, around his wrist.

Ace stared down at him, face so intimately pained Sabo wanted to give up and cry.

"Hey, bro," he murmured. His skin shifted subtly with every new expression. Pores and dimples and freckles, coinciding so carefully with all of Sabo's fuzzy-edged memories. The visage leaned down, nose bumping like a cold breeze against Sabo's. Sabo bit into his cheek and tried not to scream. "Why don't you stop being such a dumbass and just  _ listen _ to me, for once?"

"You're not real," Sabo whispered. "You're not real."

The hand tightened on his wrist. Sabo tried not to squeeze his eyes shut when Ace's other hand found the shivering curve of his hip, tried not to gasp when the freezing weight on his hips ground against him. A feverish sweat began to soak through the back of his shirt.

"Does this feel real?" Ace asked. his grey eyes fixed, steadfast and painfully certain, on Sabo's. "You gonna tell me  _ this _ is a lie too?" his hand slid down Sabo's hip to his thigh. "You gonna keep calling me a  _ hallucination?" _

Sabo's hands clenched into fists. His knuckles shook rapidly against the ground beside his head, uncontrollable and shameful. He couldn't bring himself to respond. His stomach curled in on itself, cold and heavy and heated.

The hand on his thigh continued to move. Sabo lost the battle to keep his eyes open when he heard the distinct click and snap of buttons and zippers. His belt slithered out from around his waist, falling with a hollow clatter to the floor.

Frosty fingers curled around his limp cock and he jerked with a hiss.

"I don't regret what I've done. None of it," Ace said. His voice became quick, brisk, as if it was attempting to force it all out on one shallow breath. "None of it except for you."

Despite it all,  _ (damn it, damn  _ him, _ ) _ Sabo could feel the way his heartbeat thudded against the cold confines of the ghost's palm. His blood rushed downward with every frostbitten pull against skin. His brain felt fuzzy and thick with it. Swollen heat and icy cold, churning sickly in his stomach. "How kind of you to come here just to tell me I was your one regret," He gritted out. "Why, because you thought me dead? Because you hated me? Maybe you regret that I lived in the end, that––"

Everything turned into flames. Sabo jerked away, hissing with discomfort as his face restabilized into flesh out of flames. The ghostly cold mixing in and under his fire, under his skin, was...

Ace blinked rapidly, grimacing. "I didn't actually think that would happen," He said, and Sabo hated it, hated everything about the situation that that little deadpan lilt in Ace's voice was still so easily recognizable as an apology. "But no. Definitely  _ not. _ What, did you inherit my stupid as well as my power? Think I would waste my time showing up for someone I–– I fucking  _ loved–– _ I  _ love _ you," it finished awkwardly.

They both were quiet. Sabo's heart thundered in his ears.

"Sabo," Ace whispered. "Look at me, damn it."

_ I can't. I can't. I can't. _

The hand tightened around his cock and Sabo jerked in place.

"Look at me," Ace commanded, "Fucking  _ look _ at me! We can't–– I won't–– I'm  _ here, _ dammit, you fucking  _ asshole, _ you––"

The cold weight slid, vanishing off Sabo's hips, and he shot upright. A ghostly hand shoved him back down and stayed there, bleeding frost against his stomach. Ace's visage refused to meet his eyes this time. Even one-handed, he made quick work of Sabo's pants–– a frustrated scoff exploding out of it when the fabric refused to just rip or burn and left them awkwardly around Sabo's hips. 

Sabo felt like curling up and dying when he saw Ace yank out his still hard dick from the remains of his pants. The betrayal of it all stung bitterly.

"Forget this," Ace said grimly. "If you won't listen to me–– won't even  _ look _ at me, then––"

His cock buried itself down a translucent throat and Sabo shouted hoarsely.

Instinctively, Sabo’s hands jerked off the floor and buried themselves in dark wavy hair. Or tried to. His fingers slipped through cold air, refusing to find purchase in the strands and his chest clenched suddenly and painfully. He was right. How could he let this happen again? He thought he had moved past this, past trickery and deceit and lying to himself. 

Nothing to grab on to. Nothing to anchor against. No way for him to even prove to himself through this tiny, insurmountable way that Ace lingered beyond a figment of a dream—

“‘Oo ‘igh’?”

Slick lips popped free of his cock, a string of something resembling saliva connecting the wet head to aces parted mouth. Thicker looking. Shiny and strange and cold in a way normal spit wasn’t. In the open air, his skin felt more warm than cool compared to the ghost’s throat. “Sabo? You made a weird sound. Did I bite you?”

Sabo had to tear his eyes away.

They were both quiet for a moment, a suffocating silence that made Sabo want to hit something.

"Okay," Ace said, wavering but firm. "Push me away if you don't want this."

_ I can't. I can't even touch–– _ Sabo broke his resolve and stared back into Ace's eyes. He barely even understood what he wanted. His fingers twitched uselessly where they laid stiff by his sides, nails digging into the wood. The lump in his throat pounded like a little heartbeat.

There was nothing left for them but this. But half-measures and unread letters.

Ace's eyes stared back at him, as expressive as they ever were in his fuzzy memories. The same brightness that sparkled in them in every photograph and bounty poster he found.

They were lifeless. Dull in death.

His nails raked across the wood, curling painfully into his palms. He pressed them so tightly to the floor that they ached with the pressure. "Please touch me," Sabo begged. His head spun sickeningly, voice airless and thin. "Please touch me."

The ghost's face twisted into something Sabo didn't want to see. He was almost dizzy with the relief of it, when Ace dipped his head, lips parting around the head of his cock.

Ghosts didn't need air. Nor were they entirely solid at all. Sabo watched, unable to help himself, as his flesh passed through what felt almost like cold jelly–– Ace's throat rippling chillingly around his flesh in a smooth, slick glide. Freezing lips pressed easily to the delicate skin of his pelvis and Sabo grit his teeth, unable to control the jerk of his hips up into Ace's mouth.

The ghost didn't even pretend to jostle, likely not even noticing the way Sabo's hips melted through Ace's visage. His eyes had closed the moment he had sunk all the way to the base of Sabo's cock, brows furrowed in concentration. 

It made Sabo's mouth fall open soundless and shocked when a low, inconsistent hum started up around him. The sheer cold of the touch enough made Sabo want to vibrate apart, body fighting to squirm both away and into the touch. Ace, unmovable, took the decision for him. That freezing mouth followed Sabo's hips effortlessly, near gelatinous chill rippling around his flesh even without the ability to choke. 

The humming grew louder. Ace paused only to swallow in between bobs, not needing to come up for air. The rhythm he fell into was quick and filthy. Sabo almost reflexively kicked out when the tips of Ace's incisors just barely dragged across the length of his cock, snagging on a vein. 

The clumsy graze of Ace's teeth only registered as if little needle picks of ice against his skin, cold and sudden. Every single one made Sabo forcefully bite into his lip. He wasn't sure what would come out of him if he didn’t.

Ace scooted a little closer, popping off his dick with a wet sound. His hand pumped Sabo lazily, palm making slick squishing noises with every pull. "Off," He ordered. "Get these––" 

Sabo startled when he felt the ghost awkwardly hoist his hips off the ground and half onto Ace's lap. The hand not on his cock yanked at the waistline of his shorts. 

When he met Ace's eyes he nearly was floored with the naked hunger in them. Somehow, the ache of it seemed intensified tenfold–– as if in death there was nothing to do but crave, and crave, and––

"I wanna finger you," Ace breathed. He bent down just enough to lathe his tongue over the head of Sabo's cock, fingers tightening around his hip when Sabo bucked. "Wanna feel you. Wanna make you––"

"Okay," Sabo choked out, cutting him off. 

He squirmed restlessly, struggling to kick off his pants. The job was near impossible with his boots still on but Ace didn't seem to care. Neither of them truly did. The moment he had them so much as shoved further down to his knees Ace was on him again, licking and sucking and biting at his inner thighs. 

Freezing fingers shoved roughly between his legs and he yelped as Ace's wrist brushed his balls, the cold of the touch on his heated skin making his entire body stiffen. His legs clamped uselessly together. 

"Aw, shut up," Ace teased. "Don't be a baby now, I just need a little." he swiped his palm over the head of Sabo's cock, spreading precum and plasma between his fingers. "I'd warm it up for you, but, well––"

Sabo would have smacked him if he could. "Please just shove them in me, you asshole," He said.

A broad toothed grin. "Suit yourself."

He ducked back down, eyelashes fluttering shut, and stuffed Sabo's cock as deep inside his throat as he could. It did little to hide the way Ace thrust two fingers inside of him. The immediate burn of the stretch soothed just as quickly, Ace's new natural frostiness both a blessing and a curse–– Sabo jerked with a hoarse yell as what felt like ice was fucked into him.

Head tilted back, pressed tight against the floorboards, he still swore he could feel the smug satisfaction rolling off the other.

"Fucker," He cursed, "Asshole, piece of––" A measured twist of his fingers and that ice pressed solidly up against his prostate. Ace swallowed once, twice. Drew back just to suck hard at Sabo's head, tonguing firmly against the sensitive underside. "O-oh, oh _ fucking––!" _

The hand not inside him brace on his hip. It didn't stop him from thrusting up into that mouth, those fingers–– not fully. Not at all. But the nails dug into his just so, a painful pricking approximation of a touch. 

Tight enough to bruise, tight enough to  _ mark _ him. Tight enough to  _ stay. _

Tears pricked his eyes. Sabo thrashed as Ace swallowed him down, a third finger pressing deep into him, and hissed through his teeth when the pressure in his gut peaked.

Ace led him through it with ease, not stopping, guiding all his shaking parts through the orgasm. Sabo wished it would just never end. For a long, hard moment, he could almost mistake the euphoria of it as...

He blinked his eyes open, unsure when they had closed.

Ace hovered above him, expression a strange mixture of smugness and something else. Sabo could barely tear his eyes from the odd whiteness scarring him, seeming suspended midair in the place where his throat was. He wondered if Ace noticed. "You gonna call that a hallucination?" He teased.

Not anymore. The reminder was as painful as the first time. "No," Sabo admitted. His voice was rough and grating. He swallowed thickly. "No," He tried again. "No. You're not." Opening his eyes was a mistake. The wetness there before hadn't faded with his orgasm, and they ran freely down the sides of his face and into his splayed hair. "You're not. You're  _ not. _ "

How comforting. How cruel. How much worse it all was, when the things happening to you were real.

Quiet. Ace's shoulders slumped.

Sabo bit into his lip when his brother in all but blood laid on the floor beside him. The cold of his new body seemed to seep into everything. The floorboards, his skin, the very air they breathed. He barely even noticed the way his arm broke out in goosebumps when Ace carefully took his hand, twining their fingertips together. He barely noticed anything.

"Yeah," Ace said, and it was so soft, so defeated, that Sabo forced himself to shut his eyes again. "I know."

**Author's Note:**

> Admittedly struggled a lot with this lol. i havent written porn in a hot second, nor have i written/thought about any op content since making chromi's deuce/ace gift TwT but I had fun with the ✨Pain✨ of it 
> 
> also it was routinely funny to me to be writing temperature play for the cold consideringg every moment i worked on this? my hands were fucking ICE i cant even feel my nose and im typing this while in bed under blankets asndkbhfdjnsk i am a weak californian, where is my 95 degree weather


End file.
